Must resist the clearance rack….

Finding the words

October 6, 2012

When I go on long runs I spend a lot of time thinking about things I could write about. I’m afraid that I am turning into the character from The Snows of Kilimanjaro, a little short story by the great Hemingway. The main character is dying a slow death and he realizes that while he has always called himself a writer, he never actually wrote anything. Harry knows he’s a writer, he feels it in his bones that he’s a writer, but he spends his life studying people and prepping for a book he’s never written. Depressing, right?

I haven’t really written anything of substance since the undergraduate days in college. Apparently getting a Master’s of Arts degree in English Literature just means reading a lot of literary theory, bumbling about with that theory, writing analytical papers that suck any creative juice you may have left out like rabid, frantic mosquitoes and crying a lot because you never dreamed you would spend so much time on crap that you hate like Chaucer, Milton and (so sorry American Lit lovers) Gertrude Stein. So while I’ve written actually quite a lot in the last three years, I didn’t really enjoy it and I can only think of about five people that would even want to read any of the term papers I’ve done. It is depressing.

So here’s the deal and please, for the love of God, hold me accountable. I’m going to start writing down my little life stories in the hopes that I use them someday for the novel that lives in my head that I narrate when I’m at mile five or whenever I’m at the dentist and they gas me up. If I could just carry around a can of nitrous oxide I am 99% sure that I could write one very entertaining book. So here are the topics you may choose from:

11 kids, but who’s counting? No, really. Is someone counting?

how to be a mother when your own mother pretends you don’t exist

Detroit

perils of being a SAHM when you’re actually a slacker at heart

perils of not being able to be a SAHM because your children make you stabby

Mom friends are crazy and why I love them

or whatever. I’m up for requests. Request something.

Also, I still don’t have any money and I’ve sucked at budgeting (shocking, I know). So you’ll be getting more of that. Today was a bad, bad day. I worked from home ($), went to lunch with a friend ($), bought snacks for soccer because I totally forgot I was snack mom ($) and bought a giant box of chicken tenders for dinner because it was almost 7 PM and we were all starving ($).

Today’s Tally:

Money brought in $

Money spent $$$

Oh also, I’m no longer (f)unemployed but I’ve found a happy medium. I’m working 25 hours a week for my old company helping out with their social media feeds, newsletter, blog and whatever else that they come up with. And it’s not sales. And I haven’t even wanted to stab anyone. And they expect me to work from home sometimes. And between that and my other social job, I’m pretty much busy full time but I can do a lot of work on my new big ol’ PC (it’s a tax write off! Don’t judge me!) sitting in my makeshift office while Sissy Cupcake naps and I wait for the boys to get off the bus. Right now that part of my life is fab, which makes me think that something is going to go wrong. You know how the anvil always falls out of the sky onto the Road Runners head? That’s me. I’m going to put on a helmet.